


Like They Do in Babylon

by damnslippyplanet



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: BSHCI, Because The Boys Got Themselves Caught, M/M, Mind Palace, Mostly Porn With A Slight Chance Of Plot Flurries, Murder Husbands, References to Killing But No Actual Killing, Thank Goodness For The Mind Palace, The Sexy Sexy Mind Palace, murder besties
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-19
Updated: 2016-01-19
Packaged: 2018-05-14 21:36:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5759686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/damnslippyplanet/pseuds/damnslippyplanet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>This always happened even before they were caught, that single glorious year on the run.  Their effect on each other, with all the lies and roles and masks finally gone, had been nothing short of devastating.  Consuming.  It was a miracle they hadn’t been caught sooner.  Alternatively, it was a miracle they’d gotten out of bed long enough to get caught at all</i><br/> <br/>In which the Murder Husbands have been caught, in which Will is a clever boy and trades his continued profiling assistance for time with Hannibal, and in which the boys make shameless use of the mind palace to make up for the separation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like They Do in Babylon

**Author's Note:**

  * For [everybreathagift](https://archiveofourown.org/users/everybreathagift/gifts).



_Oh let me see your beauty when the witnesses are gone_  
_Let me feel you moving like they do in Babylon_  
_-Leonard Cohen_

1\. _Dance me through the panic ‘til I’m gathered safely in_

Will must have done something particularly useful for Jack Crawford recently, Hannibal muses as the orderly is doing a final check on his restraints. They’re very particular, this set. Heavy at his legs, restricting his arms, but not fully constraining his motions. No face mask, no straitjacket. 

This set of restraints only gets used for one reason, and that one reason is that Will Graham is still useful to the FBI. Even in his cell, wherever it is - far, far away from Hannibal’s, to be sure they can never meet by accident as the orderlies direct them to and fro - Will can be useful. And is, for the right payment.

Hannibal would kill (literally or figuratively) for a chance to listen to one of the negotiations that must take place between Will and Jack.

He would kill for a chance to hear Will’s voice at all.

So far, if Will’s requested that, it hasn’t been granted. Hannibal continues to hope that someday Will may score a big enough coup for Jack that he’ll be able to wring that concession from him. It seems unlikely; Jack surely fears that with ten minutes of actual unmonitored conversation, the two of them would find a way to break out of the BSHCI. Still. He hopes.

And in the meanwhile he waits for these days. The days when Jack Crawford owes Will.

He doesn’t press himself up against the glass while he waits but it’s a close call. He stands close. Close enough that he’ll hear the heavy clink and dragging of Will’s leg restraints, matching his. He closes his eyes, and he listens, and he waits. 

Minutes tick by, and then his door opens and the usual rigmarole begins. A guard comes in first, double-checking the area outside of Hannibal’s cell where visitors can sit or pace, and then taking up a position on the far side of the room. Will’s not allowed to set foot in the room until that’s been done.

But he can stand in the doorway, and that’s all either of them really need.

They can ignore the guard, and the heavy restraints, and the glass, and the prohibition on speaking that neither of them dares break. They can just feed off looking at each other across the distance, for now.

It’s been months. Eight months and fourteen days, if Hannibal hasn’t lost track of any. Jack doesn’t come up with the kind of case that only Will can solve for him on a regular basis. 

Will looks tired, smudged darkness under his eyes. He’s been pushing himself too hard, maybe, solving the case for Jack to win these few minutes. Hannibal worries about whether Will’s having nightmares again. He worries that no one is there in the night for Will, if he does. He considers trying to find some way to convey wordlessly to Will that he should stop burning himself out for Jack Crawford’s satisfaction, but he knows he’ll never do it. He’s too selfish to give up what little he has of Will now. If Will were no longer useful, one of them would be transferred away; there’s no earthly excuse for keeping them in the same hospital except that it’s part of Will’s price.

The guards finish their sweep of the room, finish a final check to be sure Will hasn’t wiggled free from his own restraints on the walk here, make sure there’s nothing in his hands he can pass to Hannibal, and then they let Will across the threshold. Two of them leave; one of them stays. They’ll never truly leave Will and Hannibal alone again; Alana may not be running the asylum anymore but her protocols are in place and that’s probably in the protocol with underlining and highlights.

But they have this much.

Will takes slow, heavy steps to the barrier, and Hannibal comes to meet him, and oh, he can _smell_ Will now. Cheap institutional soap and shampoo most strongly, but underneath it he’s still _Will_ , and Hannibal would know him in any darkened room. He woke up too many mornings with his face buried in the hollow of Will’s throat not to know that scent.

Sometimes one of them raises a hand to the barrier first and sometimes it’s the other, but it always ends the same - both their hands pressed against the shatterproof glass, fingertips touching through one of the small openings.

And always, once they are finally touching, Will smiles.

Hannibal never really relaxes into these brief reunions until he sees that smile. The one that’s only for him, the one that says _they can’t keep us apart forever; we belong to each other_. Once he knows for certain that they haven’t broken Will yet, that he can still manage that smile, Hannibal can let himself be present in the time they have.

He smiles back, warm and open and conveying as much as he can without words: _Clever boy. You always find a way_. 

There’s so little touch allowed to them. Will’s fingertips against the back of Hannibal’s fingers are soft, his callouses gone after all this time inside. Will no longer sails. Will no longer wields knives like he’d been born to it instead of trained in the finer points of anatomy under Hannibal’s adoring tutelage. Whatever Will does with his long and lonely hours, it’s changed his hands.

Not that it matters. It doesn’t affect the electricity in the small, simple touch. 

Prison jumpsuits aren’t the most helpful in concealing a sudden, painful rush of blood that leaves Hannibal almost dizzy with how hard he suddenly is, but it hardly matters in this situation. He knows without even looking that Will’s in the same predicament, and it won’t be anything new to the guards. This always happens.

This always happened even before they were caught, that single glorious year on the run. Their effect on each other, with all the lies and roles and masks finally gone, nothing short of devastating. Consuming. It was a miracle they hadn’t been caught sooner. Alternatively, it was a miracle they’d gotten out of bed long enough to get caught at all. 

He would drop to his knees this second if it weren’t for the damned barrier. He would suck Will through the rough fabric of the jumpsuit, have him weak-kneed and pleading before he ever laid his mouth on Will’s bare skin. He’d take him apart five different ways before undoing a single button.

It would be ruinous.

It would be sublime.

Hannibal’s practically panting for it and he doesn’t care, does not care at all at this particular moment, about his dignity or his pride or any damn thing in the world except that Will’s smile has turned into the smirk that says _I know exactly what you’re thinking and I would let you. Hell, I might make you. I might order you to your knees before you had a chance to go on your own and you’d do it, wouldn’t you? You always did. Anywhere and everywhere, for me._

He wouldn’t deny it even if he could. All Hannibal does is shift his fingers slightly, so they’re on top of Will’s now, and he breathes in once and then digs his fingernails into the soft flesh just below the crescent moons of Will’s own fingernails. Hard enough to sting. Hard enough, he hopes, to mark. To give Will something to look at when he’s back in the solitude of his cell tonight.

In the silence of his own held breath he can hear Will’s, a single sharp hiss. He watches Will’s lips start to form the _f_ that would have been a _fuck_ if they were allowed to speak.

They’re not allowed to speak. 

Will bites the word back.

Hannibal relents, draws his nails back and draws his fingers gently over Will’s hand instead, caressing over the hurt. Wordless apology for the sting, and shameless hunger for touch, for whatever he’s allowed to have.

He wonders how many minutes have gone by. He wonders how many minutes Will was able to negotiate for this time. He wonders what astoundingly clever thing Will did to earn this, what killer’s darkness he willingly plunged into. 

Without withdrawing his fingers from Hannibal’s grasp, Will tips his head to look past Hannibal at his cell. There’s not much to see; surely the uncomfortable bed isn’t too different from Will’s own, the incessantly and infuriatingly dripping sink, a small shelf of books, a small plain table where Hannibal draws. Several of his drawings around the room. Not much, compared to the places the two of them had been together.

Will takes it in briefly. Hannibal wonders if Will pictures him here, if he pictures them together. And then he nods, with another knowing smile, at the picture on the far wall, a view of the Ponte Vecchio.

Florence, then. The last place they’d been together. It had been stupid to go back so soon, but Hannibal had wanted so badly to show Will so many things. 

Florence is where they’ll meet tonight. 

Not that Hannibal doesn’t meet up with Will almost every night, in one room or another of his memory palace. And he chooses to believe that Will thinks of him as well, that Hannibal’s imaginings are not solely that, but are a true place where they can meet outside the confines of metal and glass and oversight. He wants to believe Will is there with him, as aching in his own cell as Hannibal is, that they breathe together and touch together and come together even if it’s in separate rooms on separate floors of a building designed to keep them from any real contact. He wants to believe. On darker days, he doesn’t.

But on these nights, at least, he knows. He knows for certain that when the lights go out, and the orderlies have made their last rounds, they’ll be in Florence together.

He can wait. Barely. He nods to indicate he got the message, and to draw Will’s eyes back to his. _Don’t look at this dingy cell. I don’t want you to think of me here. Think of us out in the world together. Think of the blood we spilled. Think of the games we played. Think of us, together. ___

Hannibal thinks of little else, in truth. All those years of carefully storing memories in his palace against the day he’d be caught, and in the end he spends most of them visiting only the past few years of his life. All the years before them pale in comparison.

The guard shifts, coughs. It’s a warning. Time’s almost up.

A wild panic threatens to rise up and choke Hannibal but he won’t let Will see him like that. In case it’s the last time. He’s always worried it’s the last time; that one day Jack will find a new protégé who can do what Will does, and Will won’t be able to use his remarkable mind as a bargaining chip for this time with Hannibal. 

He looks at Will and drinks him in and does not panic. He stores away the image as clearly as he can - his lover, his beloved, here with him even when so much else has been taken from them.

He thinks _one day they will make a mistake and one of us will find the way out of here, and come back for the other. And then we will burn the world down together._ Will’s eyes glint back at him in the gloomy lighting and Hannibal knows that Will understands. 

They press together a moment longer, the small touch of fingers unbearably not enough, and yet unbearably too much to give up, and then at the same time they let go. They will not give the satisfaction of letting the guards pull them apart.

Hannibal steps back, and Will steps back, and Hannibal could cry at the sweet music of the only words Will is allowed to say in his presence, to the guard: “You can take me back now.” Will’s voice is a little gravelly, like maybe he doesn’t get to use it much anymore.

Hannibal doesn’t look away as Will turns and leaves him. He has to bite his cheek so as not to smile because he is almost certain that Will is doing his very best, given the awkward weight of the restraints he’s in, to sashay just a little on his way out of the room. Hannibal never could resist Will Graham’s ass and he appreciates the attempt at giving him a view to appreciate. At giving him something to treasure and to make him laugh, so he won’t give in to panic instead.

Eight months and fourteen days, that time. Hannibal mentally sets the counter back to zero and tries not to think about how long it will be until the next. 

He holds himself still and obedient when the guards come back and remove the restraints, and bring him dinner which he doesn’t bother to eat. He sketches quietly until lights-out, body aching, heart aching, organizing his new memories of Will into the confines of his memory palace.

And then finally, at lights out, he lies under the scratchy institutional blanket and knows that somewhere in the building Will is doing the same. He closes his eyes and steps into the memory palace, moving quickly toward the wing where he stores Florence, to find Will.

 

2\. _Show me slowly what I only know the limits of_

There are some doors in Will’s palace that remain locked to Hannibal, and some in Hannibal’s that Will chooses not to try to enter. But there are many spaces, bright and dark and crimson, where they overlap and blur. 

In these spaces, there’s little point in asking whose mind they’re in. It’s a question without an answer, words without sense. They simply are, together, in this space that belongs to both of them.

They’d spent a week at the Hotel Hermitage in Florence, tucked neatly between the Uffizi and the Ponte Vecchio. They’d breakfasted in the rooftop garden every morning, before visiting their Primavera or walking along the Arno or through endless cobblestone plazas. It’s a clear and cherished memory stored in both their minds, and this isn’t the first time they’ve met here.

The window’s open, a light breeze blowing through, and there are vague sounds of a busy city floating in but if they actually bothered to look out the windows the streets would be empty. Their shared spaces have no room for anyone else.

Not that they bother to look. It’s been four hours and twenty-seven minutes, give or take a margin for error, since Will left Hannibal’s cell, and that’s too damn long.

They were never any good at keeping their hands off each other in the real Florence, and it’s no different now. Hannibal’s barely set foot in the room when Will is on him, pressing into him like he’d crawl inside his ribcage and make a home there if he could. Like he’s already done that, long ago, and now he’s just trying to return there. Hannibal grips him closer, tighter, as if he could keep them together by sheer force of --

\-- _“Will,” Hannibal breathes too quietly to be heard. In his second floor cell, in the dim light of the single bulb in the hallway that never turns off, Hannibal’s eyes flicker rapidly beneath his closed lids. Otherwise he could be asleep._

 _At the far end of the hospital, one floor, six doors, a reinforced lock, and four guards away, Will turns his face to the wall and drapes a forearm over his own eyes to block out_ \-- 

“The _light_ ,” Will says with a shaky laugh when he pulls back from his place nuzzled into Hannibal’s chest to get some air. “God. I feel like I haven’t see you in proper daylight in forever. Look how gorgeous you are.”

Hannibal doesn’t precisely object to being flattered, his vanity knows no bounds, but he has more important things for Will’s mouth to be doing. He leans in for a kiss, one that starts gentle but escalates quickly, chasing every inch of sensation they can pull from each other’s lips and tongues. Will’s fingers, clever hands that always did know how to undo Hannibal, tug at buttons while they kiss.

Eventually breath becomes an issue and they break apart. Will blinks at the few inches of bare chest he’s uncovered and rests his hand there, to feel the hammering of Hannibal’s heart. He curls his nails against the skin and for a moment imagines he can reach right in and lift Hannibal’s heart out of his chest, still-beating. In lieu of that, he just scrapes the nails lightly through the silvery hair, thumb lightly running over a nipple, and he smiles when Hannibal --

\-- _shivers, as if he hasn’t been touched in forever. Which he hasn’t, really. Even if they do this most nights, even if they could do it every night, it’s enough to keep Hannibal’s soul going but not enough to sate his body, not really. He lies very still on the hard bed, not to draw the attention of his guards, but he feels like he’s melting under the simple touch._

 _Will’s been half-hard since their meeting earlier, unwilling to do anything about it. It’s not so much the privacy issue - you learn to give that up readily enough after a while in this place - but he was saving it. Waiting for Hannibal. He doesn’t touch himself yet but he lets his hand rest on his thigh, under the rough-woven blanket, and he lets himself think how they used to_ \-- 

“do this for hours,” Hannibal says hoarsely in Will’s ear, walking him backwards toward the bed. (The squeaky bed, they both remember, there’d been a complaint from the people in the next room, but the mind palace has no such problems and when Will falls backward the bed catches him silently and gently.) “You remember? Just this, sometimes, until the sun came up and you were begging for more.”

Will smiles the sweetest, wickedest smile he can summon and wriggles out of his shirt, rising up to his knees to drop it on the floor and to get back to work on Hannibal’s buttons. (Hannibal and his damn three piece suits, even in their memory palace, even when you’d think he’d want to be wearing as little as possible. Will sometimes thinks Hannibal does it just to drive him mad with the sheer quantity of buttons involved. On the plus side, knowing the suits are imaginary means Will doesn’t have to feel the slightest bit of guilt about destroying them.) 

He works the buttons with one hand and keeps the other pressed to Hannibal’s upper chest, fingers splayed to just touch his throat. Just to keep contact. He feels like he might die without some form of skin. He says, “Our memories differ slightly. I’m almost certain _you_ were the one doing most of the begging. You pleaded so beautifully. Like you thought there was some chance I might _not _give you what we both wanted. Surely you knew better, by the time we came here?”__

Hannibal sheds his layers with a speed that should not be possible. In those Florence days he would have drawn this out but that rarely happens now. They’re both too hungry, too separated, too full of longing for each other. Sometimes, if they can stay together in the mind palace long enough before one of them is unwillingly pulled away, there is a second and a third round, slow and teasing and adoring. But it’s always like this at first; a ravenous hunger to be inside each other in every possible way. 

He tugs Will’s pants down around his knees, baring him for Hannibal’s viewing pleasure, and Hannibal takes a moment to appreciate that view before bearing him back onto the bed. He misses every single thing about Will, and every single way their bodies found to bring pleasure to each other, but if he had to pick just one thing it would be the taste of Will’s skin. Salt and soap and sunlight and musk, an unmistakeable scent and taste that is just pure Will. He’s barely aware of Will’s hand in his hair, or the way he arches off the bed, too intent on recapturing this as he trails kisses and bites and suck marks down Will’s body, to the crease of his hips, lingering there with his tongue as he runs one hand up the inside of Will’s thigh and takes Will’s cock in his --

\-- _hand, roaming his own body, but it’s not enough, it’s not Hannibal’s hand and Will could sob with longing. He wishes desperately that those bites and suck marks that Hannibal gives him in their shared memory of Florence could be visible on his body in the morning. They’d both been a mess in those days, covered with each other’s old and fresh and half-healed marks. Sometimes he’d looked at his torso in the mirror and reminded himself of a map, a map of all the places Hannibal loved best, drawn with teeth and claws._

_Hannibal shifts restlessly, hands still at his sides, patient but wanting. He sinks himself deeper into the memory palace, until he can shut out the real world altogether, and all that’s left to him is the sound of Will’s_ \--

moans, long drawn-out things with the occasional little hitch or gasp when Hannibal laps at just the right spot or sucks with just the right amount of friction or digs his nails into the soft flesh of Will’s thighs where he’s holding them apart. Will likes to be held this way, to struggle just a little and to find his struggle resisted, held, overcome. And Hannibal likes feeling the quiver in Will’s legs as he just begins to shake apart, not quite there yet but close.

Will’s eyes are shut tight so he can focus on the sensation but when he gets close he wants, _needs_ to see Hannibal, so he struggles up onto his elbows to watch. It’s the only eye contact he’s ever welcomed, the nearly-black depths of Hannibal’s eyes locking on to his as his hot, velvet mouth takes Will so fucking deep that Will’s own throat aches in sympathy. Or maybe just aches with how hard he’s gasping, panting, desperate to come. 

If Hannibal could grin right now he would, but that would do unfortunate things to delicate skin with teeth, so he doesn’t. But he _feels_ like grinning, all teeth, bright and feral, because there’s no work of art anywhere in Florence that compares to Will in this particularly undone state. In another time, when they’d had all day for this, Hannibal might have stopped here. Brought Will back down from the brink only to take him there again, closer each time before falling back again, little cries of frustration like the most beautiful symphony. But time and patience are luxuries no longer afforded to them, so Hannibal doesn’t stop. He works Will relentlessly until he shudders and bucks against Hannibal’s hands holding him down, and he’s pretty sure Will doesn’t even hear himself say “I miss this, so much, Jesus fucking --

\-- _Christ,” Will hisses between gritted teeth, torn between the desire to be so quiet that the guards will have no idea what he’s doing and so loud that Hannibal will hear him from the other end of the building. Hannibal always liked hearing him, would never let him muffle his pleasure, not in their bedroom, not in the occasional semi-public location, not anywhere. And he’d never been able to keep quiet with Hannibal’s mouth on him, that mouth absolutely made for doing filthy things to every inch of Will’s body._

 _Hannibal finally moves to touch himself, just pressing his palm against the ache, nothing more vigorous yet, but he can’t help it at the vision of Will in his mind and the recollection of Will coming extravagantly down his throat. And the knowledge that somewhere in this building, if Hannibal could just rip out enough throats and break enough doors down to get to him, he’d find Will doing this same thing, assuaging his own ache. He breathes in sharply, his lips parting_ \--

\-- to let Will’s spent cock slip free, making sure not to lose a drop, finally releasing his thighs, but not until he presses one more bite-kiss-suck high on the inside of one, drawing a delicious overstimulated squirm from his beloved.

Will doesn’t find words or motor skills again for a minute, but then he shivers and reaches down and hauls Hannibal up over him, delighting in being pinned down under the length and weight of him. He loves Hannibal like this, perfect hair wrecked, eyes glazed with pleasure, so focused he wouldn’t notice if the building caught fire around them. 

He kisses Hannibal deep and slow, tasting himself, and then trails smaller kisses across Hannibal’s cheek and jaw and under his ear before getting right up against his ear to whisper: “If we had enough time, I wouldn’t let you fuck me right now. I’d make you wait until I could go again, and then I’d fuck you into this mattress until you forgot your own name.”

Will remembers doing exactly that in this room, one of those afternoons they’d had such good intentions of taking a walk through the city, and ended up barely leaving the hotel long enough to have an indulgent amount of gelato at the little shop downstairs for a late dinner. 

Hannibal smirks and grinds down against him, and his voice is just a little wrecked and raspy as he says, “But we don’t have time. So you’re going to let me. And you’re going to love every second of it.” 

 

3\. _We’re both of us beneath our love, we’re both of us above_

Will’s trying very hard to maintain his preferred level of sass but it’s hard to pretend he’s in charge of anything at this particular moment when he’s boneless and still shivering with aftershocks. He tries anyway, but his “Big words for a man still wearing pants” comes out less than convincing.

Hannibal does take the hint, though, rolling off Will long enough to divest himself of his remaining clothing. Wearing pants was becoming rapidly intolerable anyway, along with everything else about the fact that he’s not already far enough inside Will that they feel like one creature, one monster, inseparable despite the fact that they’re --

\-- _so far apart, fucking hell, Will bites the inside of his cheek hard enough to taste blood and wonders what he’d have to do to get Jack to let him into Hannibal’s cell for half an hour. Fifteen minutes. Ten. How many killers he’d have to put away. What lies he could tell the psychiatrists to convince them he’s safe enough, broken enough, gentled enough. He feels nothing like safe, nothing like gentle, at the moment, stroking himself hard and good and hot but not as good as it would be if it were Hannibal’s hand._

 _Hannibal lifts the hand that is not pressed against his aching body to his face. Will touched these fingers a few hours ago and there may still be some trace of him lingering. He inhales the faintest trace of Will’s skin and smiles_ \--

\-- against Will’s lips as they kiss over and over, more and more deeply, straining hard toward becoming conjoined in every way. Hannibal lies back now, pushed there and held by Will’s hands and now by the weight of Will over him, warm and heavy over Hannibal’s thighs, kissing and licking at every inch of throat and chest and stomach he can find. 

Will’s not as much of a biter as Hannibal. He’s a scratcher, and Hannibal is his favorite canvas, pink lines rapidly covering his body under Will’s hands. Will hears a groan as he digs particularly hard into the sensitive spot on Hannibal’s side with a thumbnail just as he laps at Hannibal’s pulse point, and he doesn’t know or care which of them made it. It isn’t enough. None of this is enough, and it’s all there is, and he needs to see Hannibal come apart at the seams maybe even more than he needed the relief himself.

Hannibal holds out as long as he can under Will’s mouth and hands, but he needs more, and his fabled patience and control have never been much more than shreds where Will is concerned. He pulls Will with him as he moves to sit up against the pillows, keeping Will in his lap, and then he slides one arm around Will’s back to hold him in place.

The memory palace is in some ways the ideal place for fucking. Most of the considerations and awkwardnesses of daily life don’t factor in here; the laws of the universe can be bent or broken. And so probably lubrication and preparation are not actually concerns and he could just fuck Will right now, and it would be exactly as smooth or as rough as they wanted it to be. But Hannibal would no sooner pass up the chance to be inside Will in yet another way than he’d pass up an escape opportunity.

So he wets two fingers in his own mouth and slides one into Will steady and inexorable as gravity, as any force of nature drawing two things together that were never meant to be apart. He licks at the sweat pooling at Will’s collarbone and he bites down more gently than he’d really like on the skin over his heart, and he stretches and bends two fingers and takes no pity at all on Will’s still-sensitive body. He knows perfectly well his pity has never been among the things Will wants from him.

Will shudders at the touch and Hannibal feels a hot, fierce surge of delight and possession and presses in just a little harder, just a little too much, because he knows Will can meet him right there at the edge of just-beyond-enough. Has never, ever failed to meet him there, where they crash and break against each other. He breathes hot against Will’s skin and watches him writhe and is barely even aware he’s saying, “Again, for me” or that Will is mouthing wordlessly _can’t, I can’t, it’s too_ \--

\-- _soon, it’s too soon for it to be this close to over, he’d make this last all night if he could. But it’s too unpredictable; a surprise guard visit or a late-night ruckus by another prisoner could break their concentration at any moment. If, when, they get out of here, Will promises himself, it will be days before he lets Hannibal out of bed for anything but the direst of emergencies. His eyes are wide and staring at the ceiling, but he’s not seeing it, his vision’s gone white around the edges as he clings to the edge, waiting for Hannibal._

 _Hannibal’s drawn his knees up to provide a little more cover under the blanket; even in this place there are dignities worth preserving and he has no interest in putting on a show for anyone but Will. He tries to touch himself the way Will would; the rhythm just a little different than what Hannibal would usually do to himself, but all the more arousing for being Will’s, and if he were a person with less control, he would moan, but instead he just_ \--

\-- sighs as Will works himself in a jagged back-and-forth rocking of his hips until he’s taken all of Hannibal’s length inside him, until he’s seated so tight against Hannibal’s hips that it doesn’t seem like it should even be possible, and yet Hannibal would find a way to press even closer if he could. Instead he just uses all of his willpower to hold still as Will moves over him, tiny swivels of his hips, adjusting to the stretch and burn and gliding pleasure of it. 

To distract himself so he doesn’t push Will too soon (not here, he’ll push Will past his limits before this and after this but never in this first moment when they join, not even in their memory of Florence), Hannibal runs his hands over every bit of Will they can reach - femur, pelvic girdle, vertebrae, clavicle, scapula, all the bones enshrined in dull dioramas in the dusty halls where his medical school knowledge lives. He’ll never go into those halls again; should he ever need to remember anatomy now, this is the only way he wants to study it. Will’s precious and singular body under his hands is the only prayer Hannibal knows.

He recites his litany silently - _radius-ulna-scaphoid-phalanges-amen_ \- as Will opens his eyes, twines his fingers with Hannibal’s for leverage, lifts up on his knees ready to slam down again, and manages to find his voice to gasp out, “Move.” And so Hannibal does, lifting his hips to meet Will rocking down onto him again, and he forgets the litany and pretty much everything else with it except his name and Will’s and the searing, soaring feeling of being complete again in this specific way. 

Will is flooded, overloaded, struggling to stay in the moment and not float away to that silent, heady place Hannibal drives him to, and drags him back from, and drives him to, again and again. He doesn’t want to miss this. He forces his eyes halfway open and rolls his hips in response to Hannibal’s almost-mournful, “I’m afraid this isn’t going to last long.”

It’s still intoxicating, to have Hannibal this way, and Will finds a breathless laugh bubbling out of him unbidden. “It doesn’t have to. God, Hannibal, just let go. You don’t have to hold back for me.” For all his protests to the contrary, he’s hard again too but he’s hanging on for Hannibal, and there’s a little less urgency this second time. He can wait Hannibal out. He unlaces his fingers from Hannibal’s and guides Hannibal’s hands to his hips, dropping his own to Hannibal’s chest, and he speeds up his rhythm and throws his head back to bare his throat and knows that in a minute Hannibal will drive into him just the way he --

\-- _wants, and he wants, and when Will finally comes, alone in his narrow uncomfortable bed, it’s almost enough to jar him out of the memory palace altogether. It’s less a single pulse of sensation than a wave of heat that surges relentlessly through him for long drawn-out moments. He has to fight to stay with Florence and not collapse shaking into oblivion, but it’s worth fighting for and he does, ignoring the trickle of either sweat or tears down his face to stay with Hannibal while he can._

 _Hannibal arches ever so slightly off the mattress, hips lifting to find someone who’s not there riding them. This really isn’t going to last long. He suspects Will’s already reached his own climax, somewhere else in this building, without him there to see every shattering second of it, and that thought alone is almost enough to do him in. He finds himself whispering, “you_ \--

\-- undo me,” as he moves harder and faster, taking the permission Will’s given to chase his own end. He barely falters in his rhythm as he surges forward and pushes Will onto his back where Hannibal can get proper purchase to move hard and fast, and he takes and he takes and finds with no surprise that Will stays right there with him to give whatever is asked of him.

For all that he knew this would be over quickly, he’s still surprised when he shatters, at the speed and force of it, how it blows out all his senses until his world narrows entirely to his teeth pressed to Will’s throat not quite breaking the skin, Will’s legs wrapped around his waist, his own breaths struggling to regain any kind of rhythm, and the wet heat of Will’s second orgasm which must have happened with his own, unnoticed. Will’s saying something and Hannibal has no idea what it is - could be a language he doesn’t know, could be nonsense, he’d have to untangle himself from Will’s body to know and he doesn’t want to do that, not --

\-- _yet, not yet, Hannibal thinks, but there’s no more holding back. For all his control, all his attempts at dignity, he can’t help a single low moan and a full-body shudder as he breaks and comes, finally. He needs, and he needs, and this is so little and yet so much. He would go truly mad if he didn’t have this much of Will, he thinks wildly, and then immediately after, he thinks that if they ever truly take Will away from him he will rip as many throats out as he can until he either escapes or is mercifully put down. He couldn’t live in this cell without this, not anymore._

 _Will’s exhausted after nights of not sleeping to solve Jack’s case, and finally seeing Hannibal again, and the tension-release of his orgasm, but he struggles to stay awake. If they were really in Florence, he’d curl up against Hannibal and drift off now, feeling as cherished and protected as he ever had in his life. Instead he just lies there hoping that Hannibal hears and knows, in his cell as well as in Florence, that he is loved as he combs his fingers through his silvering hair and_ \--

\-- whispers, “I love you. I don’t regret any of it. I’d do it all again, you know that, don’t you?”

And Hannibal slowly comes back to him, and untangles himself from Will just enough to let them shift into a more comfortable position, but still keeping as much skin contact as possible. The mouth that was so brutally biting into Will’s skin moments earlier presses the most gentle of kisses to his lips now and says, “I know. But I wish you’d run when I told you to. We could still do this but I’d know you were free. It would make it easier to tolerate.”

Will nuzzles into his hair and makes a noncommittal humming sound. They’ve been around this conversation plenty of times before and they’re both too languid and sated to really get into a proper quarrel right now. “They’re human. They make mistakes. They’ll make the wrong mistake, eventually.”

Hannibal lets out a small huff of something like laughter and says, “That reminds me. I was too distracted earlier, but… I have another admirer. Three letters now. I think I’ll write back and suggest he enact some of his visions.”

Will runs a hand along the planes of Hannibal’s shoulders and thinks again about climbing into his ribcage and asks, “Another one? Are you going to send him to me? You know sooner or later Jack’s going to start figuring out what you’re doing.”

“Jack doesn’t see what he doesn’t want to see,” Hannibal murmurs, turning his head just enough to taste the nearest patch of Will’s skin with its rapidly-cooling sweat. “All he cares about is that you catch them. And all I care about is seeing you. Eight months is too long.”

Will can’t argue that. He gives in with very little pushing and says only, “Wait a week or two. Let me catch up on sleep before you turn him loose, in case Jack calls me in right away. I can’t remember the last time I slept properly.”

Hannibal tugs at Will and Will goes, pliant and willing, until they’re pressed the way they used to fall asleep most nights. Will ends up with his back pressed against Hannibal’s chest, wrapped in his arms, with their legs tangled together. Breath tickles the back of his neck and he raises one of Hannibal’s hands to his mouth for a kiss before nestling back into Hannibal’s hold. 

“Are we sleeping now? I can try to stay awake…” Will’s yawning even as he says it, in his cell and in his imagined Florence, but he would try, oh, he would pinch himself black and blue to stay awake for ten more minutes of this.

Hannibal shakes his head in Florence, smiles a tender smile in his cell, and says, “It’s all right, Will. I could tell earlier that you’d been running yourself ragged. Sleep. If we’re lucky enough to wake up still here, I’ll wear you out again. Otherwise, meet me tomorrow night. Anywhere you want.”

Will’s already half-gone but he mumbles, “Wolf Trap. I should have kept you there. That night. Should have…”

“Shhh. Wolf Trap, then. Tomorrow night. I’ll miss you terribly until then. Sleep, Will.”

There are a few sounds after that. A lazy kiss or two, a barely heard _I love you_ , a rustling of sheets.

In Will’s nearly-bare cell with its handful of books and little else, in Hannibal’s cell wallpapered with his drawings and correspondence, in an imaginary room in Florence, Will and Hannibal sleep and neither one of them could say which of their dreams belongs to which of them or whether there’s any meaningful distinction to be made between them at all.

**Author's Note:**

> Don't usually go for the E-rating here, but I can deny [everybreathagift](http://archiveofourown.org/users/everybreathagift/pseuds/everybreathagift) nothing, and she wanted some incarcerated Murder Husbands mind palace smut, so... here we go.


End file.
